PASS/FAIL

It’s time for a change in BYU-I’s grading system

• Aaron Benson / editor in chief
• posted: 12 June 2007
• scrollopinion@byui.edu

Every student worries about grades. It’s part of our educational biography. We were raised and trained in a system that taught us A’s are good, B’s and C’s are mediocre, and D’s just aren’t acceptable.

This is the system we know—the five letter grades, the four-point GPA.In this system, we’re pressured to get A’s, because good grades earn scholarships and gain us admittance to the best graduate schools. Because our financial present and future depend on our good grades, some place higher importance on the grades than the education that they are supposed to represent.

The results? Some students register for a certain course just because of its reputation for being easy. When choosing which section to take, many students just want to know which professor offers the easiest path to an A. When the class proves more difficult than the student anticipated, the temptation to cheat is much stronger, and so more students succumb to it. Sympathetic teachers have a hard time giving students poor grades, even if they deserve them, which results in grade inflation. When more students are getting A’s than not, what’s the point of the system?

The solution to the problem is for BYU-Idaho to stand by its motto of “rethinking education,” and start to rethink the grading system.

Most universities use the same grading scale as BYU-I for their undergraduates. However, many allow undergraduate students to take some classes as pass/fail to encourage them to take courses they otherwise wouldn’t. So, why not change entirely to a pass/fail system?

Administrators and professors alike will tell you that a pass/fail system gives students greater academic freedom.

For example, imagine a biology student who is also interested in sociology. With our current system, this student might hesitate to take an upper-level sociology class for fear of getting a C and losing a scholarship. In a pass/fail system, the student wouldn’t have to worry, as a C would be good enough to pass the class. The student could then focus on learning, instead of worrying about grades and scores. And isn’t that what education is about—learning?

A pass/fail system would also make for better classroom learning by allowing the professors more time to focus on the subject and the students, instead of the grading. The quality of the teaching would go up, and so would the learning.

Of course, the line between pass and fail would have to be drawn a bit higher than it is now. What passes today as a D-worthy effort wouldn’t make the cut in a pass/fail system. Professors would need to ask more of their students.

That increased difficulty is the key to solving the pass/fail system’s biggest drawback.

In the current system, GPA is a quantified measure of a student’s academic capacity. Competitive undergraduate programs, like the nursing program at BYU-I, and graduate schools use GPA as a criterion for admission.

But these programs can and most often do use other criteria as well. Graduate schools also factor in service, work experience, and most importantly, entrance exam scores.

If BYU-I establishes the quality of its education by setting higher standards for a passing grade, then a transcript with a bunch of passes wouldn’t hold back the student who is excelling in other areas.

Even if students don’t plan on applying to graduate school, a pass/fail system would work. Students would have the diplomas they need to break into a job market that just doesn’t care too much about grades.

What really matters is what the student knows, and a pass/fail system would help put the emphasis back on acquiring knowledge.

Another benefit of the pass/fail system is a decrease in stress for students. The Mayo Clinic recently published a study about the effects of pass/fail grading on the stress, mood and group dynamics of medical students.

The study found that students who studied in a pass/fail system had less stress, better mood and better group cohesion than students in the five-letter system. In other words, students were happier and people got along better with one another. Couldn’t we use a little more of that?

One difficulty of switching to a pass/fail system would be determining who gets scholarships. Perhaps faculty could nominate a few students in each class to get a scholarship. Students who get enough nominations would then be awarded scholarships.

Or, scholarships could be awarded, like grants, on a need-based system. In order to maintain their scholarships, students would just need to pass classes.

Some might say that a five-letter grading system provides motivation for students to excel. The motivation for excellence, however, should not be for the grades, but rather the education itself. If gaining the knowledge they need to excel as graduate students and professionals isn’t motivation enough for students, then nothing will be.

At first, the shift to a pass/fail system would be difficult. Students and faculty would have to undo a lifetime of focus on A’s and B’s. We really would have to rethink how we do education here at BYU-I. But isn’t that we’re about?

Let’s make the change to a pass/fail system—for the good of the students, the faculty, the university and the world at large.